Citizen Perceptions of Candidate Ideology in the 2008 Election

This paper examines mass perceptions of candidate ideology during the 2008 U.S. presidential election. On the one hand, ideology should provide a useful cue for citizens to sort out the differences among the contenders for the presidency. On the other hand, a substantial amount of prior research suggests that perceptions of candidate issue positions are highly subjective and affected by characteristics of the individuals themselves, rather than the stands actually taken by the candidates. Similar processes could easily be occurring for ideology, as well. Therefore, the analysis below presents a model of individual perception that incorporates not only each candidate's actual liberal-conservative position, but also the potential for sophistication and rationalization effects.The empirical results show that all of these phenomena enter into the processes through which citizens judge candidate ideologies. However, we argue that it is important to distinguish between the individual-level psychological effects and their eventual political impact. At the aggregate level, the American electorate does appear to differentiate the ideological positions of Barack Obama and John McCain in a fairly accurate manner.